Killer admits to 'solved' murders

Prosecutors in southern Italy were yesterday facing the prospect of reopening long-closed cases after a serial killer confessed to committing three murders for which other people are already in jail.

A local newspaper in Puglia published on Saturday a letter from the "little old lady killer", Ezzedine Sebai ben Mohammed, confessing to the three killings.

Sebai, 41, is serving four life sentences after terrorising elderly women in Puglia and neighbouring Basilicata in the mid-1990s. The Tunisian national was arrested in 1997 for the murder of 75-year-old Lucia Nico. From the outset, he was suspected of being a serial killer.

A search of his home turned up a ring and watch belonging to two other murdered pensioners. Eventually the courts decided he had struck at least five times, wounding one victim and killing the others. But in a letter to the Voce del Popolo, Sebai said he wanted to free the prisoners currently in jail.

Sebai's victims were all poor, elderly women living by themselves with direct access to the street. Most were stabbed to death. Further complicating the investigation was the fact that similar killings continued even after Sebai's arrest.

But in his confession he promised to take full responsibility for the other crimes. "I have done wrong and I am paying and I am ready to serve any other sentence," he wrote.